Chapter 1 Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community How did the global community, both as an idea and as a reality, emerge and develop? This question may be examined in many ways, but one possible approach would be to look at the creation, growth, and activities of international organizations, both governmental and nongovernmental. The number and functioning of these organizations may be taken as a good measure of the degree of “globality” at a given moment in time, a circumstance that contributes to establishing transnational connections and to shaping a world community existing in conjunction with the international order made up of nations. In this and the following chapters, I examine how intergovernmental and international nongovernmental organizations have interacted with each other and with the existing states, in the process transforming the nature of international relations. For both intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations to emerge, nations and peoples had to be strongly aware that they shared certain interests and objectives across national boundaries and that they could best solve their many problems by pooling their resources and eVecting transnational cooperation, rather than through individual countries’ unilateral eVorts. Such a view, such global consciousness, may be termed internationalism, the idea that 9 Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 10 / The Origins of Global Community nations and peoples should cooperate instead of preoccupying themselves with their respective national interests or pursuing uncoordinated approaches to promote them. A characteristic of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history was that internationalism grew in strength, as exempliWed by the increasing number of nonstate organizations, even as states and nations developed as important deWners of people’s lives and of world aVairs. Internationalism in the sense of cooperation among states and among governments had always existed, of course, in the shape of alliances, treaties, and agreements. Most of these, however, were temporary measures to ensure the security and interests of the parties involved and did not necessarily presage the construction of a global community with shared concerns and objectives. Through treaties and agreements, the nations of the world periodically sought to establish an international system, however fragile and temporary it might prove, but much more would be involved if they were to organize a global community, what Hedley Bull terms an “international society.”1 Such a community would arise only if nations and their people recognized that some issues aVected them equally and that to cope with them, institutions had to be created to establish common rules and to protect their shared interests. This sort of internationalism was reXected, for instance, in various conventions the nations of the world entered into during the nineteenth century to standardize weights and measures, to adopt uniform postal and telegraphic rates, and to cope with the danger of communicable diseases.2 Some of these conventions led to the establishment of international organizations such as the Universal Postal Union, the International Telegraph Union, and the International Sanitary Council.3 These institutions were among the earliest intergovernmental organizations. It is a measure of the maturing of international relations during the nineteenth century that according to one count, their number increased from just one at the beginning of the century to eleven by 1900.4 The institution that is usually viewed as the Wrst modern intergovernmental organization, the Central Commission for the Navigation Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 11 of the Rhine, established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was limited to participation by central European (mostly German) states, whereas a Superior Council of Health founded in 1838 in Constantinople to deal with the spread of communicable diseases included both Ottoman and European delegates.5 That inclusiveness was becoming the trend; increasingly, international organizations came to involve members from other parts of the globe in addition to those from Europe.6 Together with such parallel developments as the codiWcation of international law, the establishment of international courts of arbitration, and the convening of international conferences to discuss ways to prevent war, these organizations attested to awareness that nations existed not simply to provide for the security and interests of their citizens but also to promote the well-being of all of them collectively, and that in the modern world more could be gained through international cooperation than through unilateral action. It was against the background of these developments that international nongovernmental organizations began to be created in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although a small number—one survey mentions Wve—of such organizations may have existed prior to 1850, most studies agree that it was in the last decades of the century that many more (numbering about ten every year during the 1890s, for instance) were established.7 It is not diYcult to understand why. For one thing, technological developments, such as the locomotive, the steamship, the telegraph, and the telephone, were bringing peoples of the world into ever closer contact. While such proximity periodically produced friction and conXict, it also gave rise to global consciousness, the idea that eVorts should be made to ensure peaceful interactions among peoples of the world through transnational initiatives. The growth of these initiatives is an important theme in international history at the opening of the twentieth century. Most accounts of that history still tend to be presented in the framework of “the road to war” or “the origins of the World War,” as though nothing else mattered. Apart from the fact that there were many roads to the war that Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 12 / The Origins of Global Community erupted in 1914, things might have developed in such a way that one would not even be talking about a road to war. Alternatives to war, and paths to peace, also existed, thanks to the eVorts by individuals and organizations that were dedicated to peace. International organizations, particularly of the nongovernmental variety, played a crucial role in this story. The growth of international nongovernmental organizations was also greatly facilitated by the development of worldwide networks of goods, capital, and labor at the end of the nineteenth century, and at the beginning of the twentieth, the phenomenon known as economic globalization. The relationship between economic growth and the development of such organizations is clear. As more wealth was generated, corporations and individuals were able to Wnance various private initiatives, best exempliWed by the philanthropic organizations that made their appearance in the United States. International nongovernmental organizations could be funded by these foundations as well as by individual donors. Without a Xourishing world economy at the beginning of the century, those organizations might have been much slower to develop. It might be tempting to go a step further and assert, as some do, that nongovernmental organizations were agents of global capitalism, that they promoted the interests of European and American capitalists by forging closer links among distant lands and by spreading certain uniform (i.e., Western) rules and standards of behavior. But that would be ignoring the fact that nongovernmental organizations, at least of the kind that this book describes, were nonproWt bodies engaged in activities that were sometimes at odds with the interests of global capitalism. Globalization contained many elements: technological, economic, organizational, intellectual, artistic, and psychological. To pick just two of these elements and establish a causal connection between them would be a gross oversimpliWcation. Globalization as a state of mind (global consciousness) was always a key ingredient of international organizations, and that cannot be equated with capitalist acquisitiveness. In an ideological sense, however, capitalism and nongovernmental Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 13 institutions may be said to have had something in common. Liberalism, the body of thought that emphasized individual rights, initiatives, and freedoms against state authority, provided an ideological underpinning both for entrepreneurs and for philanthropists, both for traders and for organizers of humanitarian endeavors. While liberal ideology had emerged earlier, against eighteenth-century absolutism and mercantilism, it gained new signiWcance toward the end of the nineteenth century, the period that witnessed the emergence of modern states such as Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan that joined the more established nationstates in Western Europe to constitute the civilized world. (The United States became a modern state after the Civil War.) Precisely because the tendency of these states was to strengthen central governmental authority, there were forces that sought to preserve the autonomy of business activities or to protect the rights of citizens, and quite often such forces fortiWed themselves through establishing contact across national boundaries. The growth of international nongovernmental organizations was one clear manifestation of this phenomenon.8 Liberalism in the age of global capitalism was becoming internationalized. This does not mean, however, that from the beginning international nongovernmental organizations were conceived as antagonistic to state agencies. Most such organizations in fact worked closely with governments. Perhaps the most conspicuous example was the International Red Cross. At Wrst, it was more an intergovernmental than a nongovernmental organization. As is well known, the impetus for its founding came from a Swiss doctor, Jean Henry Dunant, whose Un souvenir de Solferino (1862), an account of what he had witnessed at the Battle of Solferino (1859) between Sardinia and France on one side and Austria on the other, appealed to his government to convene an international congress for improving the treatment of the war-wounded.9 By the time the Swiss government organized such a conference in 1864, a Red Cross had been established in Geneva through private eVorts, and similar organizations had begun to appear elsewhere. The governments that were represented at the conference signed a treaty, endorsing the activ- Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 14 / The Origins of Global Community ities of these Red Cross societies, which now formed the International Red Cross with its headquarters in the Swiss city. The initiative that the Swiss government took, and the fact that an international treaty ratiWed the establishment of the International Red Cross, suggest that even such a nongovernmental humanitarian agency was intimately connected to existing national governments. This could complicate the operation of such a body. For instance, in 1906, when the Swiss government convened another international conference to consider revision of the 1864 treaty to bring it up-to-date, the Japanese government was adamant that Korea not be invited. Although the Korean government had ratiWed the original convention, in 1905 Japan had established its protectorate over Korea, and Tokyo now insisted that Japan would henceforth handle Korea’s diplomatic aVairs. Switzerland relented, and the Korean Red Cross came under the jurisdiction of the Red Cross of Japan. Even the fate of an international nongovernmental organization dedicated to humanitarian assistance could thus be aVected by power politics.10 Besides, national Red Cross societies tended to be “integrated into the plans of both armies and their medical authorities,” as John F. Hutchinson notes.11 The line between the state apparatus and a nonstate organization was never clear-cut. The same thing may be said of international nongovernmental organizations in the Weld of cultural and intellectual exchange. The late nineteenth century saw the creation of many such organizations aiming at the exchange of scientists, artists, musicians, and others across national boundaries, thereby establishing what today would be called “epistemic communities”—groups of individuals sharing ideas and interests. But the state was never remote from those undertakings. To cite a typical example, when a world congress of historians was planned for 1898 to be held in Amsterdam, invitations were sent out in the name of the Dutch government and communicated to foreign governments through their ambassadors and ministers in The Hague. Various countries’ political leaders were listed on the program as honorary chairmen.12 In most instances, a foreign government in receipt of the invitation transmitted Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 15 it to an appropriate agency, such as the ministry of education, and the latter in turn contacted universities, academic societies, and individuals to inform them of the opportunity. Some governments selected scholars to attend The Hague gathering and funded their travels. Similar episodes could be duplicated in the gatherings of geographers, artists, musicians, and others that became more and more numerous in the period preceding the World War. Likewise, in sanitation and health care, a number of international conferences were held and organizations established around the beginning of the century, such as the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau and the International Central Bureau for the Campaign against Tuberculosis, both founded in 1902. These were international nongovernmental organizations but were closely connected with national medical and health care societies, which in turn were under state supervision in many ways. Thus nongovernmental organizations were never completely independent of national governments. The two often cooperated, and it may be argued that without the support and encouragement of the states, many of the incipient organizations might not have been able to function at all. Nevertheless, the existence and growth of those organizations, as well as of the international gatherings they sponsored, were not simply another aspect of international relations deWned by the interaction of sovereign states. The activities of the nongovernmental organizations, as well as of intergovernmental organizations, were adding a new element to world aVairs. This can be seen particularly well in some organizations that functioned quite independently of governmental agencies. For instance, the Esperanto movement grew rapidly at the beginning of the century: there were three Esperanto clubs in 1890, twenty-six in 1900, and eighteen hundred by 1914. Neither these clubs nor the Universal Esperanto Association, created in 1908 as the Wrst international organization of Esperantists, was connected to governmental agencies but instead sought to promote international peace and understanding through cross-national communication.13 Another signiWcant development, the growth of international wo- Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 16 / The Origins of Global Community men’s organizations, was also independent of state authorities. As Leila J. Rupp has noted, it was toward the end of the nineteenth century that women’s associations in the United States and Europe—those “in trades, professions and reforms, as well as . . . those advocating political rights,” according to the initial letter of invitation—recognized the need to come together to form an international body. The International Council of Women was established in 1888, followed by a number of similar organizations that, at least in principle, included as members women “of whatever race, nativity, or creed.”14 As a third example, we may consider the International Olympic Committee, established in 1894 in Lausanne as “the supreme authority” over the holding of the Olympic games. First held in 1896 (as a revival of the sporting event that had taken place in ancient Greece), the games were initially a rather casual and informal aVair in which athletes from a small number of countries, mostly European, participated. The concept of sport, as distinguished from games and gymnastic exercises, was a product of late–nineteenth century Western society where people began to have leisure and resources to devote to athletic competition.15 And there was unquestionably a nationalistic basis to the encouragement of physical strength: to prepare a nation’s youth for war. As Kristin Hoganson suggests, nations were stressing manliness as a way to survive in the modern world, and sport was one way to cultivate it.16 But the key in our context is that the International Olympic Committee from its inception was a nongovernmental organization that made up its own rules about the Olympics, including their location and timing as well as the qualiWcations of the competing athletes. These rules were to be applied to all countries, and as more and more of them came to participate, the Committee grew into a major international organization that established universal standards quite independent of national governmental authorities. At the beginning of the century, various religious organizations began to engage in international activities that were social and cultural. Of course, these activities were religious in the broadest sense, but they were Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 17 not just extensions of the traditional proselytizing eVorts but reXected an awareness of the importance of establishing close links with various parts of the world at a time when the globe was becoming smaller. The World’s YWCA, founded in 1894 to coordinate activities by national Young Women’s Christian Associations, deWned one of its objectives as the fostering of “Christian principles of social and international conduct by encouraging the development of a right public conscience such as shall strengthen all those forces which are working for the promotion of peace and better understanding between classes, nations, and races.”17 Such language suggests that religious organizations were becoming interested in international social issues, not just in purely evangelical work. Just as the Social Gospel movement was making headway in the United States domestically in an eVort to turn the attention of Christians to the consequences of rapid industrialization and urbanization, internationalization of Christianity was taking place, in which secular endeavors in Welds such as education, medicine, and social welfare became objects of the new organizations. In this sense, they fall within our deWnition of international nongovernmental organizations. The growth of international organizations, both intergovernmental and nongovernmental, became so conspicuous that in 1910, some of their leaders came together in Brussels to found a center for international organizations: OYce Central des Associations Internationales. It was intended as the headquarters for those organizations, a clear indication that they had become too numerous to be ignored. As the editors of La vie internationale, the organ of the OYce Central, declared in its Wrst issue (1912), the movement of ideas, events, and organizations had come to constitute “international life,” penetrating all activities of people, who were no longer conWned to their villages, provinces, or countries, and was enveloping “the entire terrestrial globe.”18 The Brussels center, though it functioned more as a clearinghouse of information than as an advocate of particular agendas, showed that the “entire globe” was indeed being covered with ideas and forces that found their expression in international organizations. Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 18 / The Origins of Global Community Globalization, as a state of mind and as an institutional expression, was dawning. Indeed, some economists argue that global markets and capital transfers were even more extensive in the years before the Great War than today.19 This was also the time when imperialism—one state’s control over other states, lands, and people—became truly global, covering all corners of the earth. Whether the imperialistic states were “the most powerful agents of globalization,” as some scholars argue, economic globalization and territorial imperialism undoubtedly reinforced each other.20 Improvements in transportation and communications technology facilitated the governance of distant lands, while overseas colonies and spheres of inXuence created networks of interdependencies. In the age of imperialism, aspects of modern civilization, exempliWed by hospital facilities, hygienic programs, sewage systems, schools, roads, and the like, began to spread throughout the world, as did the consciousness of human diversity. Imperialism, however, did not generate internationalism, the sense of global community in which all nations and people shared certain interests and commitments. That had to come from international organizations. The awareness that the constantly increasing number of such organizations reXected the coming of a new age—that of global interdependence—was perhaps best expressed by Leonard Woolf, whose International Government (1916) was a remarkable statement of institutional internationalism, not least because it was written and published during the European war. Despite the tragic conXict, Woolf was convinced that “in every department of life the beginnings, and more than the beginnings, of International Government already exist.” By “International Government” he did not mean a world government but the conventions, committees, and organizations that nations had set up to serve international interests. According to him, the “recognition of international interests, and that national interests are international interests, and vice versa, was the great social discovery of the last 100 years.”21 Against this background, the coming of war in Europe in 1914 must be seen not merely as yet another story in the drama of power politics, Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 19 or as some inevitable development proceeding along a predetermined “road to war,” but also as an instance when forces of globalization came to serve destructive purposes of nations, rather than being steered in a constructive direction. It had been the task of international organizations to ensure that this latter path would be followed, but in the end it was not. Globalizing forces and global consciousness, which had emerged before 1914, proved inadequate to overcome parochial interests and ambitions of states and peoples. Whatever the intensity of the new global awareness, or however large the number of international organizations, these were powerless to prevent the nations from behaving traditionally, in pursuit of their national interests and concerns. With a few exceptions—perhaps the most notable was the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which convened a congress of women in The Hague in the middle of the war—both intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations stopped functioning during the war, and many domestic nongovernmental organizations devoted their energies to the war eVort. (The Red Cross societies of the belligerent nations worked closely with their armed forces to care for the wounded.) Nevertheless, the war, which became global with the participation of Japan, China, the United States, and other extra-European states, aVected globalization in complex ways. At one level, all the combatants developed weapons (aircraft, submarines, tanks, and larger and faster warships) that could traverse distances much more quickly than ever before. These were used for destructive purposes, but the technology was bound to be utilized for peaceful ends once the conXict stopped. Economically, the World War disrupted patterns of international trade and shipping, especially in Europe, but elsewhere the movements of goods and capital continued, and some countries began to undertake industrialization. As for global consciousness, the war may have strengthened it, even amid the unprecedented mass slaughter. As Leon Trotsky noted in 1917, the war seemed to raise “to new heights the feeling of ‘universality,’ of awareness of the indissoluble tie between the fate Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 20 / The Origins of Global Community of an individual and the fate of all mankind.”22 Even more important, the Great War never wholly discredited or discouraged internationalist movements. Actually, to an observer such as Woolf, the conXict was “just a little sagging to one side, to violence and stupidity and barbarism,” but the fact that international institutions had been created long before the war would ensure that “in ten or Wfteen or twenty years’ time there will be a sagging to the other side, to what we dimly recognize as progress and civilization.”23 The task after the war, then, was to continue globalization but to steer it in a more peaceful, constructive direction. And the key, it seemed to Woolf and numerous others, lay in rejuvenating and strengthening international organizations. The renewed faith in the power of international organization was clearly expressed by Mary P. Follett, an American political scientist, who wrote shortly after the United States entered the war against Germany that “the contribution of America to the Great War will be told as America’s taking her stand squarely and responsibly on the position that national particularism was in 1917 dead.” Nations, she noted, “have fought for national rights,” but these “are as obsolete as the individual rights of the last century.” What Follett was suggesting was that interdependence of individuals and of nations had become a feature of contemporary life. The war, because it was a product of a contrary (and therefore obsolete) force, was certain to reinforce the commitment to “organized cooperation” in international aVairs. This was so because all “interests,” “destinies,” and “movements” were becoming “internationalized.”24 In such a perspective, the growth of international organizations in the aftermath of the Great War was not so much a reaction against the brutal and senseless Wghting as a resumption of an earlier trend that had been momentarily suspended. According to one source, the number of intergovernmental organizations declined from thirteen before the war to nine in 1920, but during the following ten years, it increased to thirtyone. Even more impressive was that there were more international nongovernmental organizations in 1920 than in 1910: 214 compared with Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 21 135. By 1930 the number had reached 375, almost triple the Wgure on the eve of the war.25 Among the new intergovernmental organizations, the League of Nations was the most dramatic example, an embodiment of the prevailing “group psychology,” according to Follett.26 Organization was taken to be the key to postwar international (and national) aVairs, so the League was the most conspicuous institutional expression of “the community of nations.” It was an international organization with global interests, concerning itself not just with security matters but also with labor, health, cultural, and other issues throughout the world. For these larger tasks, the League established a number of aYliate organizations such as the International Labor Organization and the League of Nations Health Organization, many of which would continue to function throughout the postwar decades until they would become part of the United Nations after the Second World War. Some of these bodies were not new creations but postwar incarnations of earlier organizations. For instance, the League of Nations Health Organization expanded on the work of a prewar entity, the OYce International d’Hygiène Publique, which had been founded in Paris in 1907 to oversee the quarantining of ships and ports aVected with plague and cholera.27 And some of the prewar activities that the International Bureau for the Suppression of TraYc in Women and Children (established in 1899) and other organizations carried out became part of the agenda for the newly established International Labor Organization.28 One of the most interesting aYliates of the League was the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, established in 1922 to promote cultural and intellectual exchanges among nations. This body was envisaged as a committee of intellectuals from all over the world who would represent “a small group of men and women” in each country “who have the means of inXuencing opinion,” as a British spokesman said.29 Such thinking was hardly new. Before the war, as noted earlier, a number of epistemic communities had come into existence to bring together intellectuals and artists from various parts of the world. In the Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 22 / The Origins of Global Community aftermath of the war, they were more determined than ever to help create a global community transcending national egoisms and interests. A sister organization, the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, was set up in Paris in 1926 with initial Wnancial support from the French government. Many other countries from Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia contributed funds to the institute and created their own national committees on intellectual cooperation. The membership in both organizations of so many countries was typical of postwar internationalism. As was suggested by the fact that the League of Nations started with thirty-two member countries, more than half of which were outside Europe, international organizations now were far more global in scope than before the war. The same thing can be said of the new intergovernmental organizations that came into being in the aftermath of the Great War. To bodies that had long been in existence, such as the International Telegraph Union and the Universal Postal Union, were now added organizations that reXected the technological changes that were further narrowing temporal and spatial distances among nations: air navigation, long-distance telephones, radio transmission, and the like. The war heralded the coming of the age of the airplane, and the widespread prediction was that peacetime air travel would provide an increasingly important mode of transportation. Already at the Paris peace conference, several nations were able to agree upon a draft “convention for the regulation of aerial navigation,” and after its ratiWcation the International Commission for Air Navigation was set up. At this stage, this commission did not internationalize air travel regulations; the 1919 treaty speciWed that “every Power has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the air space above its territory.”30 Nevertheless, the creation of the International Commission was important, as it worked assiduously throughout the postwar years to establish a uniform air code for all countries. The Commission’s eVorts would bear fruit during the waning years of the Second World War, when a Chicago conference of 1944 would produce a muchstrengthened system for regulating air navigation. In the meantime, Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 23 long-distance telephone systems had vastly improved during the European war, and after the conXict an international body, the International Consultative Committee for Long-Distance Telephony, was created as the principal body that would recommend the establishment and maintenance of international telephone cables and would conduct joint experiments for technological improvement.31 Also at this time, the question of allocating radio frequencies among nations arose. The radiotelegraph had proved vitally important during the war, and the need for expanding and regulating frequencies was well recognized by the victorious powers, which tried to set up an international commission to deal with these matters as soon as the conXict was over. The idea was to assign certain frequencies to each country for radio broadcasting, an ambitious attempt even in the prevailing atmosphere of postwar internationalism. No worldwide governmental agreement was reached at this time, but a nongovernmental organization, the International Broadcasting Union, was established in 1925 as a voluntary institution to make suggestions, some of which were to become the bases for oYcial agreements.32 As this last example shows, the relationship between national governments and international organizations, and between intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, was already becoming complex. Yet all these organizations tried earnestly in the postwar years to work together to solve problems that faced the whole world. That may be one way of characterizing international relations during the 1920s. Whatever the tensions created among states by such issues as German reparations, inter-Allied debt to the United States, or Soviet propaganda—themes that are stressed in most accounts of the decade— internationalism was being fostered through international organizations working cooperatively among themselves and with state agencies. To be sure, a lack of cooperation sometimes plagued their work. John F. Hutchinson’s recent study of the International Relief Union, created in 1927, oVers a good example.33 Representatives of forty-three countries met in Geneva to establish this organization, which was dedicated Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 24 / The Origins of Global Community to the relief of victims of natural disasters, especially earthquakes. The inspiration came from Giovanni Ciraolo, president of the Italian Red Cross, who naturally expected that the International Committee of the Red Cross would support the initiative. But another international Red Cross organization, the League of Red Cross Societies, had come into existence in 1919, and an often acrimonious rivalry existed between these two organizations. Some national Red Cross societies stood aloof or actively opposed Ciraolo’s internationalist agenda. As a result, despite the lofty language that heralded the founding of the organization, it accomplished little in international disaster relief. Such a story suggests that institutional rivalry and personal jealousies were just as conspicuous among international organizations as within governmental institutions. Despite such frustrations, however, the number of international organizations never stopped growing, and they continued to engage in an increasing variety of activities during the decades after the war. More successful instances of collaboration among diVerent types of organizations may be seen in air navigation and shipping. The previously mentioned International Commission for Air Navigation, an intergovernmental body, was paralleled by the establishment of a nongovernmental organization, the International Air TraYc Association, to study and propose standardization of international traYc rates, timetables, and other services.34 The Association frequently met to discuss these issues, and its recommendations were then submitted to the Commission for its approval and adoption by nations. In international shipping, the League of Nations was instrumental in promoting agreements on maritime labor, safety, and commerce, but in this work the world body was assisted by the nongovernmental International Shipping Conference, created in 1921.35 Nature conservation was also beginning to attract the attention of international, not just national, organizations at this time. “International protection of nature” had been attempted a few times before the war, but the founding of the League of Nations made it possible for private organizations as well as some concerned states to work through the world Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 25 organization to arrive at speciWc agreements on conservation of wildlife. Most notably, the League, various national committees, and governments cooperated to produce a convention in 1930 to prohibit killing certain kinds of whales.36 One of the most enduring of nongovernmental organizations concerned with nature conservancy, the International Council for Bird Preservation, was established in 1922 in London through the initiative of an American ornithologist, T. Gilbert Pearson, a major Wgure behind the founding of the National Audubon Society.37 In the meantime, irrespective of intergovernmental conferences and agreements, international nongovernmental organizations were pursuing their own agendas, enriching the world arena with networks of interdependence. Cultural and social internationalism best describes their activities, since they were all founded on the assumption that cultural and social questions knew no national boundaries and that they required an international framework for solution. A few examples illustrate the impressive variety of their activities. Several nongovernmental organizations were established right after the war to deal with crossnational educational issues. Promoting exchanges among teachers, students, and philosophers of education of diVerent countries appeared to be one important way to prevent another calamitous war in which young men of school and university age had suVered the bulk of casualties. Thus in the immediate aftermath of the war, the International Confederation of Students was organized in Brussels to “create bonds of esteem and friendship between students throughout the world,” the International Federation of University Women in London to “promote understanding and friendship between university women in all countries,” and the World Association for Adult Education, also in London, to promote “continuing education” among workers, prisoners, and many others.38 A large number of scientists, mathematicians, and geographers, on their part, created an International Research Council in 1919 in London to “coordinate international eVorts in the diVerent branches of science and its applications.”39 Several of their members were to play important roles in the creation of the International Council Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 26 / The Origins of Global Community of ScientiWc Unions, organized in 1931 to bring together the world’s scientiWc community.40 Virtually all of these organizations were initiated by Europeans and had their headquarters in European cities, obviously reXecting the sense of urgency felt in the wake of the war to promote mutual cooperation and understanding. From the beginning, however, these associations included members from other parts of the world, and their periodic conferences typically attracted participants from the Middle East, Asia, the PaciWc, North America, and Latin America. Comparable in importance to educational institutions were the new service organizations, which, together with those established before the war, focused on international relief work. In 1919, for instance, the Save the Children Fund was established in Britain, which became the Save the Children International Union in the following year, to coordinate eVorts at providing help to starving children in various parts of the world. The Union’s philosophy was unmistakably internationalist; as one of its statements declared, “In relief of suVering neither national nor political distinctions are to be taken to account.”41 Also in 1920, a French paciWst, Pierre Ceresole, founded Service Civil International, to organize work camps in France and other countries to help with community development and to diVuse wartime hostilities.42 A paciWst organization in the United States, the American Friends Service Committee, had been established in 1917 to engage in nonmilitary service during the war, and after the conXict ended, it continued to engage in international relief and educational activities. Although more “a national organization having international activity” than an international nongovernmental organization, it worked closely with Quaker societies throughout the world. More international, perhaps, was the European Central Bureau for Interchurch Relief, established in 1922 as a result of a meeting of American and Swiss church members in Copenhagen. They continued the eVorts that various Christian organizations began right after the war to help rebuild churches destroyed during the Wghting.43 By the end of the decade, postwar relief programs had given way to a new emphasis on social work, to develop welfare policies and programs in various coun- Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 27 tries. But it was widely recognized that this, too, was an item that called for cross-national cooperation, and in 1928 the Wrst “international conference on social work” was held in Paris, in which nearly twenty-Wve hundred delegates from thirty-four countries participated.44 One of the most interesting nongovernmental organizations at that time was the Institute of PaciWc Relations, Wrst launched in Honolulu through the initiative of YMCA-linked Christian leaders to bring together “men and women deeply interested in the PaciWc area, who meet and work not as representatives of their governments, or of any other organization, but as individuals.” From the beginning, the international and nongovernmental nature of the organization was apparent. In preparation for its founding, in 1923 the YMCA in Honolulu created an executive committee consisting of American, Chinese, and Japanese residents of Hawaii, and an international advisory body with members from Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States.45 Moreover, despite the YMCA initiative, by the time the Institute was formally created in 1925, it had become less a religious than a secular organization committed to a cross-national exchange of ideas on a broad range of issues such as interracial relations and security in the PaciWc. These countries established their own national committees of the Institute of PaciWc Relations, analogous to the national committees on intellectual cooperation and similarly promoting the cause of internationalism. As Frank Atherton, one of the Honolulu leaders, stated at the opening meeting of the Institute, “each nation has its contribution to make to the family of nations and each should take an active and constructive part in working out that plan which shall be for the welfare of all.”46 That the Institute’s members, especially those from China and Japan, were not always mindful of “the welfare of all” but began to engage in often acrimonious debate, especially after the organization was moved to New York in 1927, does not detract from the historic signiWcance of this multinational experiment. After all, this was the Wrst international nongovernmental organization devoted to continuing dialogue on Asian and Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 28 / The Origins of Global Community PaciWc aVairs—what would come to be called “track two” dialogue many decades later, bringing oYcials (participating in an unoYcial capacity) and public opinion leaders from several countries together for an intensive discussion of bilateral and multilateral issues. Delegates from China, Japan, and the United States continued to participate in the conferences organized by the Institute of PaciWc Relations throughout the 1930s, thereby setting an important precedent for future track two endeavors. The number of international nongovernmental organizations grew so rapidly that in 1929, when the League of Nations published the Handbook of International Organisations listing 478 international organizations, over 90 percent of them were private.47 (A supplement to this publication was issued in 1932, listing 82 additional organizations, almost all of which were nongovernmental.) Lyman Cromwell White, the pioneering student of international nongovernmental organizations, noted in a study published in 1933 that most of these organizations in existence at that time fell into the categories of “humanitarianism, religion and morals, arts and sciences, and labor.”48 John Boli and George M. Thomas, among the leading scholars of the subject today, have pointed out that most international nongovernmental organizations before the Second World War were of a “universal” as opposed to a “regional” type, open to membership from all over the world.49 This is very signiWcant because internationalism had been primarily a European and North American phenomenon before the Great War. It was now becoming much more global, drawing members from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America and concerned with humanitarian, religious, cross-cultural, and labor issues all over the world. The objection may be made that the term “universal” had limited connotations at that time; not only did a large part of the globe remain colonies of the imperial powers, but the Soviet Union often adamantly refused to participate in international organizations, considering them bourgeois institutions serving the interests of capitalists. The colonial population and the Soviet Union were tied together through the Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 29 Communist International, or the Comintern, established in 1919 to dedicate itself to propaganda and political work to overthrow imperialism. The Third International was not exactly a nongovernmental organization, and it shared little with other international organizations. It was bitterly opposed by the Labor and Socialist International, founded in 1923 as the true successor to the earlier Second International. The extremely contentious relationship between the two Internationals, however, should not obscure the fact that organizing across national (and imperial) boundaries was now a universal phenomenon, going beyond the prewar activities that had been much narrower in scope and membership. Indeed, both socialists and communists were avid international organizers, bringing together workers, artists, and intellectuals for festivals and conferences. Among the most notable were the Socialist Workers’ Sport International and the International Association of Worker-Peasant Organizations of Physical Culture (Sportintern), attracting athletes from all parts of the world under socialist and communist auspices, respectively. They were workers’ counterparts to the bourgeois Olympics, but as noted later, the line between the two became increasingly tenuous. The belief that sport as well as art, scholarship, medicine, social welfare, and all other spheres for which there were international organizations were really transnational endeavors remained strong. International women’s organizations illustrate this point, of which there were three major ones in the postwar decade: the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Whereas prior to 1919 their memberships had been almost wholly European and North American, during the 1920s women in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia created their national sections and joined the international bodies. For instance, before the war China had been the only nonWestern country whose women participated in the activities of the International Alliance of Women in promoting the cause of women’s suVrage, but in the wake of the peace they were joined by women from Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 30 / The Origins of Global Community such countries as Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Jamaica, Japan, Syria, and Turkey.50 The Alliance, together with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, whose membership also expanded to include individuals from Haiti, Japan, and Mexico, successfully lobbied the League of Nations to include a woman on its Mandates Commission, arguing that in countries “inhabited by races of diVerent colours, the relations between the men of the governing race, and the women of the other are a source of diYculty and often an actual hindrance to good understanding.”51 There were other examples of the successful mobilization of international women’s organizational pressure, to which the League of Nations was particularly sensitive. Of course, instances of failure, or of disagreement among women, were just as numerous, especially on such contentious issues as birth control and eugenics. But even in those cases, problems were frequently discussed at international gatherings, both governmental and nongovernmental. The number of international conferences on population control, for instance, increased from seven during 1901–1910 (also during 1910–1920) to nineteen between 1921 and 1930.52 That at these gatherings some abhorrent (in today’s perspective) policies, such as sterilization of the “feeble-minded,” were debated does not detract from the fact that so many issues of the day were becoming objects of worldwide concern and that international organizations provided the institutional setting for their discussion, if not always for their satisfactory solution. The signiWcance of international organizations did not dissipate even during the 1930s when the world moved headlong toward another war. Because we know the calamitous history of international relations during that decade that eventuated in the Second World War, it is tempting to say that all the eVorts and activities that the international organizations carried out were of little or no importance. Would it not be possible to write a history of these turbulent years without paying the slightest attention to such organizations? What diVerence did they make anyway? Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 31 The answer to both questions depends on what is meant by “diVerence.” If we are looking at international relations as interstate geopolitical aVairs, obviously the international organizations, both governmental and nongovernmental, were powerless to stand in the way of the seemingly inexorable march of events leading to another war in Europe in 1939 or to prevent Japanese aggression in Asia and the PaciWc, culminating in the global war of 1941–1945. Does this mean that international organizations were irrelevant, that they were a waste of nations’ and private associations’ attention and resources that might have been better allocated to prepare for the impending world crisis? That would be the conclusion only if we put everything in international relations during the 1920s and the 1930s in the context of “the road to war” or “the origins of the Second World War.” If these were the only frameworks for understanding this history, then the international organizations must be seen as having been naïve exercises in idealism at best, or misguided attempts to divert nations’ and citizens’ attention to irrelevant pursuits at worst. But to deny the existence and activities of these organizations is to prioritize one interpretation of the history of that era and ignore everything else. After all, there was not just one “road to war,” and there could have been “roads to peace.” To talk about the “origins of the Second World War” is to assume that there was to be a second world war, as if everything must be comprehended according to its place in the “origins.” Obviously, international organizations occupied no signiWcant place in the origins, except insofar as they failed to prevent such an eventuality. (The Comintern was one organization that did try, in the mid-1930s, to coalesce forces throughout the world opposed to fascist aggression. But it was much more a national than an international body, expressing the interests and objectives of the Soviet Union, and its activities, therefore, were more part of the story of interstate aVairs than of international organizations.) Perhaps the existing international organizations could have tried harder to keep the nations of the world at peace with one another. But if that were the only criterion for judging whether to pay attention to organizations and individ- Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 32 / The Origins of Global Community uals, then very few of them would ever become objects of historical inquiry. If, on the other hand, we are looking for clues to other developments, one of which was surely the survival of internationalism, we shall have to give international organizations their due even during the 1930s. Indeed, precisely because of the world economic crisis and totalitarian aggressions, the need was greater than ever for international eVorts to alleviate the suVering of people who were victimized by these developments. The best-known example is the World Jewish Congress, organized in 1936 to try to protect the rights of Jews in Germany and other countries. But it was not alone. The diary of Victor Klemperer, the German scholar of French literature who suVered under the Nazi regime, is Wlled with references to various organizations that oVered assistance to persecuted Jews. In May 1935, for instance, he wrote identical letters soliciting help from the Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland (Association of German Scientists Abroad) in Zurich, the Academic Assistance Council in London, and the Emergency Committee in Aid of German Scholars in New York.53 These were all nongovernmental organizations that were involved in international rescue missions. During the Spanish Civil War, the Save the Children International Fund, originally established in 1920 to help young victims of the war in Europe and the Middle East, sent relief workers to both sides in the conXict to alleviate the suVering of children. The same organization held an international conference on African children in June 1931, and two years later it adopted a resolution deploring the growing tendency of the time toward reembracing nationalism.54 It was not just in emergency situations, however, that international organizations became active during the decade. Their roles were not limited to the relief of victims of war, civil war, or totalitarianism but were notable in another important development of the 1930s: national uniWcation and strengthening in many parts of the world. Even the totalitarian dictatorships may be seen as having been examples (albeit extreme) of the tendency on the part of so many countries to become Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 33 uniWed and strong states. National uniWcation or reuniWcation was a widely observed phenomenon at that time. For instance, the New Deal in the United States can be Wtted into this theme; as Michael Sherry has argued, economic reconstruction and social reform were means for reunifying and strengthening the nation.55 China is another example; it was not simply in response to Japanese aggression that eVorts were made to reform its Wnancial institutions and to centralize its banking system. These were part of the national reconstruction that had begun in the late 1920s and continued with greater urgency during the 1930s because of the Depression. Likewise, Mexico under Lázaro Cárdenas developed economic and social reforms, what historians have called a “cultural revolution,” through close cooperation among the state, labor unions, teacher organizations, and many others.56 Similar eVorts were carried out in Turkey under Mustafa Kemal, where hundreds of “people’s homes” and “people’s rooms” were established to spread nationalist, populist, and secularist ideas.57 In Spain two visions of nationhood came into violent conXict, resulting in the establishment of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. Elsewhere, in countries that were gaining independence, such as Iraq and Egypt, the military tended to come to control national politics. They, too, were trying to develop themselves as strong, uniWed nations. If, therefore, nation building or national reconstruction was an important theme of the decade that has been obscured by the more dramatic phenomena of totalitarianism and war, then international organizations would have to be evaluated according to what roles they played in that story. At a time when states were focusing on their domestic unity and military strengthening, did international organizations try to preserve the spirit of cross-national cooperation? Or did internationalism succumb to forces of renewed nationalism, not just of the totalitarian variety but virtually in all states? These questions cannot be answered without more monographic study. In its absence, all that can be mentioned here is the undeniable fact that international organizations did not disappear but remained active, even growing in number. The Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 34 / The Origins of Global Community League of Nations was a “failure” only with regard to its inability to stop Japanese aggression in China or the Italian conquest of Ethiopia. This did not mean, however, that the world organization stopped functioning. Its International Labor Organization, Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, and Health Organization continued to carry on their tasks. As just one example, the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and its aYliate body, the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation in Paris, never let up their eVorts to organize exchange programs, conferences, art fairs, and the like. Japan, which had withdrawn from the League, stayed in this committee and continued to participate in its activities till 1940.58 The United States and Mexico, and over thirty countries from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia were still, on the eve of the war, represented in the organization. As for international nongovernmental organizations, Lyman Cromwell White’s useful survey, published after the war, lists many of them that were active as of 1938. Most had been established earlier and continued to carry on their tasks during the 1930s. For instance, the International Migration Service, organized in 1925 to “render service through cooperative eVort” to migrants, had, by 1938, set up branches in Germany, the United States, and many other countries. The World Federation of Education Associations, founded in 1923 in Washington, continued to hold biennial conferences; it was convened in Tokyo in 1937, and even in the summer of 1939, when the scheduled gathering in Rio de Janeiro had to be canceled because of the European crisis, over seven hundred nonEuropean members undertook a cruise to various countries in the Caribbean and South America to engage in workshops and seminars.59 In the meantime, new organizations were being established. In 1930, for example, the International Association of Children’s Court Judges was created in Brussels to provide an opportunity for children’s judges from various countries to come together to seek an international solution to juvenile delinquency, child welfare, and other matters. The Florence Nightingale International Foundation was founded in London in 1934 Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. The Origins of Global Community / 35 under the auspices of the League of Red Cross Societies and the International Council of Nurses for training nurses throughout the world.60 These instances suggest that international eVorts did not abate even in a decade characterized by nation-centered agendas and exclusionary orientations on the part of so many countries in the world. Perhaps the most interesting instance of an international organization trying to promote friendly relations among states during the decade of Werce nationalism was the work of the International Olympic Committee that organized the Olympic games in Los Angeles in 1932 and in Berlin four years later. Despite the Depression, and despite the aggressive behavior of Japan, Italy, and Germany, the International Olympic Committee maintained its independence and imposed its standards and rules upon all participating nations, including these countries. The Berlin Olympics were particularly notable because they showed that despite Nazi racism, athletes of all races and countries competed under the same rules. As Barbara Keys’s study shows, “sport internationalism” prevailed over totalitarianism and self-centered nationalism, albeit for a brief moment, in 1936.61 Klemperer’s diary records that the Nazis sought to draw the lesson from the games that “only hard training gets results,” but this was, after all, a universally valid idea. While the diarist was disgusted with the Olympics, viewing them as “an entirely political enterprise,” he also noted that at least during the duration of the games, “Jew-baiting, bellicose sentiments, everything oVensive has disappeared from the papers.”62 To that extent, the Olympics demonstrated the eVectiveness of an international nongovernmental organization in creating a world pursuing its own rules and internationalist agendas. That the goodwill generated in Berlin lasted only for a few weeks did not prevent the International Olympic Committee from planning for future games. Although the coming of the war made it impossible to hold the games as planned, national Olympic committees as well as amateur sport federations continued to function during these years. Indeed, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, originally established in Sweden in 1912, increased its membership from forty-eight in 1930 to Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2004. University of California Press. All rights reserved. 36 / The Origins of Global Community Wfty-one in 1938, and the Soviet Union tried very hard to join the organization, though it was not admitted until after the war.63 Such instances suggest that the internationalist spirit never disappeared in the 1930s. Indeed, precisely because many countries were redeWning themselves along nationalistic lines, forsaking international cooperation for the pursuit of national interests and military power, internationalism, were it to survive, had to depend more than ever before on the activities of international nongovernmental organizations.64 Writing just after the Second World War, Lyman Cromwell White noted that while during the 1930s, “nationalism gained over internationalism,” these organizations remained active; “not a single organization which had attained any importance before the depression failed to survive.” Some increased their membership. White cites the example of the International Federation of Trade Unions, which added to the number of its national units during the 1930s even as German trade unions withdrew.65 International organizations, both governmental and nongovernmental, represented the conscience of the world when individual states were destroying the peace and seeking to divide the globe into self-contained empires, or else focusing on national uniWcation and strengthening. In a period when globalization of economic and political aVairs, which had begun to resume its course after the war, was being challenged by what appeared to be global militarism and anarchy, global consciousness was kept alive by the heroic eVorts of nonstate actors that preserved the vision of one world. Iriye, Akira. Global Community : The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World, University of California Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=2244 Created from apus on 2018-11-27 04:08:45. Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 1 Introduction to NGO Diplomacy Michele M. Betsill and Elisabeth Corell The modern era of international decision making on the environment and sustainable development formally began with the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm. Representatives of more than 250 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) attended the Stockholm Conference, representing constituencies bound by common values, knowledge, and/or interests. These NGOs served as technical experts, helped develop the rules for NGO participation, participated in plenary sessions and committee meetings, and engaged in several parallel forums designed to strengthen their connections with one another. Willetts (1996b: 57) views Stockholm as a watershed event in terms of NGO involvement in global governance, marking the beginning of a ‘‘slow yet steady liberalization of the NGO system occurring over the following two decades.’’ Since Stockholm, NGO involvement in international decision-making processes related to the environment and sustainable development has escalated, as demonstrated by their participation in the two subsequent global conferences. More than 1,400 NGOs were accredited to the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, and more than 25,000 individuals from 167 countries participated in the parallel Global Forum, where NGOs negotiated alternative treaties and engaged in extensive networking (Chatterjee and Finger 1994; Dodds 2001; Kakabadse and Burns 1994; Morphet 1996; Willetts 1996b). One of the greatest achievements of the Rio Conference was Agenda 21, the action plan for sustainable development in the twenty-first century, which recognized NGOs as partners in the global struggle to promote sustainable development. In 2002, more than 3,200 EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 2 Chapter 1 organizations were accredited to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, where NGOs were central to the creation of partnerships for sustainable development (Gutman 2003; Speth 2003). The dramatic increase in the number of NGOs over the past century has been well documented, as has the fact that these organizations increasingly participate in international political processes. Academic interest in the role of these actors in global environmental politics has exploded since the early 1990s, and a growing body of evidence indicates that NGOs influence government decisions to develop domestic policies to protect natural resources and to negotiate international treaties, as well as how individuals perceive environmental problems (see Betsill 2006). Despite mounting evidence that NGOs make a difference in global environmental politics, the question of under what conditions NGOs matter generally remains unanswered. This volume addresses this question in the realm of international environmental negotiations. We contend that the increased participation of NGOs in these political processes reflects broader changes in the nature of diplomacy in world politics. In international relations scholarship, diplomacy is often viewed as something that states do; an important aspect of statecraft and foreign policy (e.g., Magalhães 1988). Alternatively, Sharp (1999) argues that diplomacy is better understood in terms of representation; diplomats are actors who act on the behalf of a clearly identified constituency. We find that Sharp’s definition better captures the reality of multilateral negotiations on the environment and sustainable development. As the contributions in this volume demonstrate, international environmental negotiations cannot be understood in terms of inter-state diplomacy. Rather, these processes involve myriad actors representing a diversity of interests. In multilateral negotiations on the environment and sustainable development, NGO representatives act as diplomats who, in contrast to government diplomats, represent constituencies that are not bound by territory but by common values, knowledge, and/or interests related to a specific issue (see Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld 2005). To the extent that NGO diplomacy has been considered in the past, the emphasis has often been on unofficial acts, such as hosting foreign EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Introduction to NGO Diplomacy 3 visitors or participating in cultural exchanges or scientific meetings (sometimes referred to as ‘‘citizen’’ or ‘‘track-two’’ diplomacy) (see National Council for International Visitors 2006; Starkey, Boyer, and Willkenfeld 2005). However, these discussions typically treat NGO diplomacy as something that occurs outside the realm of formal, inter-state politics. In contrast, the contributions in this volume illuminate the ways that NGOs engage directly in one of the most traditional diplomatic activities—formal international negotiations. In each of our cases, NGO diplomats perform many of the same functions as state delegates: they represent the interests of their constituencies, they engage in information exchange, they negotiate, and they provide policy advice (Aviel 2005; Jönsson 2002). This volume presents an analytical framework for the study of NGO diplomacy that takes into account the effects of nongovernmental organizations on both negotiation processes and outcomes and provides a basis for conducting systematic comparative analyses. Most current research consists of individual case studies, where scholars rely on different measures of NGO influence, different types of data, and different methodologies. As a result it is difficult to make assessments about where NGOs have had more or less influence and to examine the factors that may lead to variation in NGO influence across cases. In this volume, contributors use the framework to examine the role of NGO diplomats in negotiations on climate change, biosafety, desertification, whaling, and forests. Within these cases many different types of NGOs are considered—environmental, social, scientific, and business/industry organizations. These analyses demonstrate that it is possible to make qualitative judgments about levels of NGO influence and that comparison across the cases allows scholars to identify factors that explain variation in NGO influence in different negotiating situations. In this introductory chapter we define what we mean by NGOs and clarify our focus on international negotiations. We then discuss the need for a systematic approach to the study of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations and outline the strategy we have used to conduct such research in this project. We conclude with an overview of the remaining chapters in the volume. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 4 Chapter 1 What Are NGOs? Scholars and practitioners use the term NGO to refer to a wide range of organizations, which are often differentiated in terms of geographic scope, substantive issue area, and/or type of activity. Some authors specifically examine international NGOs working in at least three countries, while others focus on national or local grassroots organizations. Still others emphasize the various networks formed by these organizations. Studies of international environmental negotiations routinely highlight the involvement of environmental NGOs (ENGOs) as well as scientific organizations and NGOs representing business and industry interests. Finally, some scholars differentiate between NGOs based on the character of their primary activities: advocacy, research, and outreach. In this project, the term ‘‘NGO’’ refers to a broad spectrum of actors from advocacy groups rooted in civil society to privately held multinational corporations and trade associations to research-oriented bodies that participate in international environmental negotiation processes using the tools of diplomacy.1 We draw on Oberthür et al.’s (2002) thorough review of the legal and academic literature on NGOs, which identified three minimum criteria that are used in the accreditation process to determine who may participate in international policy making processes and thus to define an NGO. According to this study, an NGO is an organization that (1) is not formed by intergovernmental agreement, (2) has expertise or interests relevant to the international institution, and (3) expresses views that are independent of any national government. This is consistent with how the term is used in the UN, which also excludes organizations that advocate violence, are political parties, and/or do not support UN objectives (Oberthür et al. 2002; Willetts 1996b). For the purposes of the present study, this broad usage of the term NGO is appropriate for at least two reasons. First, as stated above, it reflects the usage within the UN system, which covers the majority of international institutions in which multilateral negotiations related to the environment and sustainable development take place. Second, all NGO representatives can be distinguished from state diplomats in that they do not represent territorially defined interests. We recognize the di- EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Introduction to NGO Diplomacy 5 versity of actors that fall within this definition and have encouraged the contributors to make distinctions between types of NGOs (e.g., environmental groups vs. industry associations) as they see fit. However, we did not wish to exclude a priori any type of NGO, since the purpose of this project was to explore the significance of NGO diplomacy, broadly defined, on international environmental negotiations. We recognize, however, that there may be important differences between types of NGOs that affect whether and how they exert influence. The framework we develop to analyze NGO influence in international environmental negotiations may help illuminate these differences. We address the importance of the distinctions between NGOs in the conclusions and suggest areas for future research on this important question. Why International Negotiations? International negotiations are one political arena in which NGOs attempt to shape policy making related to the environment and sustainable development (see Betsill 2006). Other arenas include (this is not an exhaustive list): domestic policy making, the formation of global civil society, and decision making of private actors (e.g., corporations). While NGO activities in all of these political arenas may have implications for the global governance of the environment and sustainable development, we argue that each of these arenas is likely to involve different political dynamics that in turn shape the ways that NGOs participate, the goals they pursue, the strategies they use and the likelihood that they will achieve those goals (Betsill and Corell 2001). Unfortunately, much of the current literature tends to treat all studies related to NGOs in the area of environment and sustainable development as a single body of research, without differentiating between these different arenas of activity. While NGOs may be central in the development of a global civil society, it is entirely possible that they are less successful in shaping new international institutions to address environmental issues. Scholars need to employ a multifaceted view of the role of NGOs and the arenas in which they participate in world politics. At the same time there is great demand for general conclusions about EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 6 Chapter 1 NGO influence in international politics. It would be also useful to be able to consider whether NGOs are generally more influential in particular arenas, and if so, why. The purpose of this project is to better understand these dynamics within one arena—international environmental negotiations. We examine negotiations aimed at creating a new agreement outlining general principles, commitments, and/or decision-making procedures as well as post-agreement negotiations that address questions of implementation and/or new conflicts that arise under an existing treaty (Spector and Zartman 2003). International negotiations are a particularly interesting arena in which to consider NGO influence since they are largely the domain of states. As UN members, only states have formal decision-making power during international negotiations. They establish rules for who may participate and the nature of that participation (e.g., through formal interventions or by directly engaging in floor debate), and ultimately it is states that vote on whether to adopt a particular decision. In contrast, NGOs often participate in these processes as observers and have no formal voting authority, making it difficult for NGO diplomats to influence the negotiating process. Thus findings of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations present an interesting empirical puzzle. In this volume we specifically analyze NGOs who attend international negotiations for the purpose of influencing those negotiations. Many NGOs attend negotiations to take advantage of the opportunities to network with other NGOs; they show very little interest in engaging in NGO diplomacy (Friedman, Hochstetler, and Clark 2005). While the development of such networks may have significant implications for global environmental politics more broadly, we are primarily interested in the more immediate effects of NGO diplomacy on specific negotiating situations. We wish to clarify two points related to our understanding of multilateral negotiations. First, negotiation processes and outcomes are shaped by more than just what happens during isolated, two-week formal negotiating sessions.2 NGO diplomats may influence multilateral negotiations during the pre-negotiation/agenda-setting phase, so it is important to consider how the negotiations came about in the first place. In addition NGOs may influence the negotiation process during formal interses- EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Introduction to NGO Diplomacy 7 sional meetings, through domestic channels and/or in more informal settings as well. Therefore, in assessing the influence of NGO diplomats in international negotiations, we have encouraged contributors to consider all activities related to multilateral negotiations, not just those that occur during the official two-week sessions. Second, our conception of political arenas should not be confused with levels of analysis. The dynamics within the political arena of international negotiations are shaped by things that happen at different levels, including the domestic level.3 To the extent that NGOs engage in activities within a domestic context that are clearly targeted at influencing international negotiations, these activities should be considered in the analysis of NGO diplomacy. A Systematic Approach Despite mounting evidence that NGOs make a difference in global environmental politics, the question of under what conditions they matter remains unanswered. Specifically, it is difficult to draw general lessons about the role of NGO diplomacy in international negotiations on the environment and sustainable development because the current literature suffers from three weaknesses.4 First, as noted above, there is a tendency to treat all studies related to NGOs in the environmental issue area as a single body of research without distinguishing between the different political arenas in which they operate. It is important not to collapse conclusions in the literature about these different spheres of activity. Students of NGOs need to employ a multifaceted view of the role of NGOs. Second, there is a surprising lack of specification about what is meant by ‘‘influence’’ and how to identify NGO influence in any given political arena (two notable and commendable exceptions are Arts 1998 and Newell 2000). Progress in our understanding of the conditions of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations depends on more careful consideration of what we mean by NGO influence and how influence might be identified. While we recognize that defining influence can be a complicated matter, it is highly important because it forces analysts to think carefully about the types of evidence needed to indicate NGO influence. Without a clear understanding of what is meant by influence, EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 8 Chapter 1 scholars often appear to be presenting evidence on an ad hoc basis. As a result such studies run the risk of overdetermination as scholars look for any possible sign that NGOs made a difference in a given political process while ignoring evidence to the contrary. In other words, defining influence has implications for the robustness of research findings. Moreover lack of consistency in the types of evidence used to indicate NGO influence in international environmental negotiations makes it difficult to compare the role of NGO diplomats across cases, to make assessments about where NGOs have had more or less influence, and to examine the factors that may lead to variation in NGO influence across cases. Another problem associated with the failure to define influence is that the evidence presented may not be an appropriate proxy for NGO influence. If NGO diplomats truly influence international environmental negotiations, then it should be possible to observe the effects of that influence (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994). Scholars frequently rely on evidence regarding NGO activities (e.g., lobbying, submitting information or draft decisions to negotiators on a particular position), their access to negotiations (e.g., number of NGOs attending negotiations and the rules of participation) and/or NGO resources (e.g., knowledge, financial and other assets, number of supporters and their particular role in negotiations). However, these types of evidence primarily tell us how NGOs engage in international environmental negotiations but do not give us information on the subsequent effects. Third, most studies stop short of elaborating the causal linkages between NGO activities and outcomes. Gathering evidence of NGO influence in a more systematic fashion is clearly an important first step to enhancing our understanding of how and under what conditions NGO diplomats matter in international environmental negotiations. However, researchers still run the risk of confusing correlation with causation. If a particular proposal for discussion or wording in the agreement text corresponds to views of NGOs, does that necessarily reflect the success of NGO diplomacy? It could be the case that other actors involved in the negotiations were promoting similar views. Plausibility claims can be strengthened by linking NGO participation and influence in international environmental negotiations. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Introduction to NGO Diplomacy 9 In sum, progress in understanding under what conditions NGOs matter can be achieved by more carefully recognizing the distinct political arenas in which NGOs operate, by defining what we mean by NGO ‘‘influence,’’ and by elaborating the processes by which NGO diplomats influence multilateral environmental negotiations. In this volume we further theoretical development on the role of NGOs in global environmental politics by proposing an analytical framework for assessing their influence in one sphere of activity—international environmental negotiations. The framework, which takes into account the effects of NGO diplomats on both negotiation processes and outcomes, provides a basis for conducting systematic, comparative analyses, which in turn allow us to make some claims about the conditions under which NGOs matter. Research Design This volume is the culmination of a project begun in 1999. The objectives of the project are twofold: (1) to develop methodologies for strengthening findings of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations, and (2) through comparative analysis, to identify a set of conditioning factors that shape the ability of NGO diplomats to influence such negotiations. At the core of the project is an analytical framework for assessing NGO influence in international environmental negotiations, which was originally published in 2001 (Betsill and Corell 2001; Corell and Betsill 2001). Shortly thereafter, project participants began developing case studies to both test and refine the framework as a tool for assessing NGO influence and to begin discussions of the conditioning factors that shape NGO influence. The cases have been selected based on the availability and interest of scholars with significant prior knowledge of NGO diplomacy in international environmental negotiations. Three cases (climate change, biosafety, and desertification) examine single agreement negotiations over a fairly short period of time. The other two cases (whaling and forests) analyze several negotiations on a single issue over a decade or more and often in different institutional contexts. These latter cases provide the opportunity to consider how NGO influence changes over time, across EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/29/2012 5:32 PM via AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIV SYSTEM 9780262268417 ; Betsill, Michele Merrill, Corell, Elisabeth.; NGO Diplomacy : The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations Account: s7348467 Copyright © 2008. MIT Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 10 Chapter 1 institutional fora, and/or as negotiations pass through different phases. The cases cover negotiations of initial agreements as well as postagreement negotiations focused on how to achieve an agreement’s goals and address ongoing or new conflicts that arise (Spector and Zartman 2003). The cases are heavily weighted toward natural resource issues as opposed to pollution. Regarding our first objective—developing methodologies for analyzing NGO influence in international environmental negotiations—our approach to case selection is unproblematic. The cases are appropriate in that in each instance NGOs were actively engaged in international negotiations, giving us the opportunity to evaluate the utility of the proposed analytical framework for assessing NGO influence in this particular political arena. We are, however, more limited in terms of our second objective—to identify a set of conditioning factors that shape the ability of NGO diplomats to influence such negotiations. Our opportunistic approach to case selection precluded us from engaging in a ‘‘theorytesting’’ exercise in our cross-case analysis, since we made no determination about the appropriateness of the cases at the outset (see George and Bennett 2005). Instead, we took a more heuristic approach whereby each of the case authors inductively identified the key conditioning factors that enabled or...
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